


Into the Fray

by buckycharmbarnes



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Artist Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Remembers, F/M, Major Original Character(s), Original Character Death(s), Original Character-centric, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Protective Steve Rogers, Tony Stark Does What He Wants, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-08
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-01 07:26:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10183985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckycharmbarnes/pseuds/buckycharmbarnes
Summary: After the devastation of The Accords, the once-called team is left to pick up the pieces. The Earth's mightiest heroes are scattered; separated by the feud as they start to question their actions. It's taking its toll on Tony, who didn't take just the shield away from the brawl in Siberia, when it seemed that Zemo's homicidal efforts weren't as effective as he thought. Among the cryo caskets of which the passed Winter Soldier's lay, was a single heartbeat and thanks to Tony's glimmering humanity, the sleeping girl wasn't left to the mercy of her wintry tomb. The aftershock of a war is not the ideal time to be released from a coma, especially with the added bonus of Hydra still stuck in her head. The winter soldier, Noname's mind slowly defogs whilst the Government latches onto her scent, pushing her to seek refuge in Wakanda where she finds herself surrounded by forces both inside and outside the walls. Alliances are forged with the former Captain and his team, not to mention with the King himself but when scavenged Hydra forces threaten Wakanda, alliances get tested. Now she must decide where her loyalties lie; will she forever follow orders as Hydra's weapon or will she accept this broken team as the family she never had?





	1. Noname

**Author's Note:**

> Into the Fray - playlist
> 
> \- Dream on by Aerosmith  
> \- I Want you by The Beatles  
> \- Be good by Emily Kinney  
> \- Can't help falling in love by Haley Reinhart  
> \- Gasoline by Halsey  
> \- Way down we go by Kaleo  
> \- Carry on my wayward son by Kansas  
> \- Hurt by Johnny Cash  
> \- It’s been a long, long time by Harry James and his orchestra  
> \- Free bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd  
> \- Who are you, really? by Mikky Ekko  
> \- Lost it to trying by Son Lux  
> \- Brown eyed girl by Van Morrison  
> \- Heathens by Twenty one Pilots  
> \- Crystal by Stevie Nicks
> 
> Disclaimer: We do not own or claim to own any rights to Marvel films, characters and/or plot lines.
> 
> Warnings: Conservative sexual content; foul language; character death; referencing to suicide; violence.
> 
> This is a continuation of the timeline of the Marvel Cinematic Universe picking up immediately after the film, Captain America: Civil War (2016).

The Avengers Compound ; Upstate, New York ; May 12, 2016

What is this . . . What is . . .  
The constant ring sliced through her ear, rendering her deaf for anything besides the searing noise that clouded her mind. There abiding a faint beep which was set on a continuous loop but seemed to escalate the more darkness she managed to escape from. The blinding light struck her blistering eyes, the mere energy taking from her any sign of understanding or any sense of peace, and instead replaced it with an unbearable confusion.

"R-Ready to . . . C-co-" she tried, she begged herself to let her own lips shape into words but instead the disbelief and hovering eyes above her shot adrenaline and ran it through her like a stamped of raging terror. Her line of vision wasn't exactly clear, but it wasn't much clouded anymore, either.  
Her body shot up, bounding from the hospital bed and into the lonely space with the same eyes still ravishing her, their hands urging her back to the bed but to no avail. She fought back, watching multiple bodies fling backwards into the walls and medical utilities with a single struggling slash of her arm.

Everything was a blur.

The hallway's florescent lighting ticked as she ripped past them, her feet testing the other of how fast they could move, until a sharp pain in the back of her neck rendered her boundless and to the mercy of the floor. To the mercy of the deep darkness that consumed her, a bitter welcome that postponed her consciousness. It was the same thing the next time she urged her eyelids open; the blinding light beating her down, the hair-tearing beeping and the raging ring. Yet this time when she attempted to urge herself from where she lay, her hands held her down and her wrists felt a burning cold cutting into them. The handcuffs clacked the more she tried to get free of them, and the more and more time she was conscious the more aware she was that she wasn't alone. The man sat, crossing his legs in his chair positioned to face where she was restrained.

Your smirk is inappropriate. The thought sliced through her head when she came upon her inability to phrase it correctly. Given he was indeed smiling, it was yet another thing that muddled her mind beyond the act of being able to comprehend or take in what surrounded her, so she did what she only could do, and analyzed him. He was well groomed, black and blues outlining the creases of age in the face and wore another lab coat, must have been another doctor. His beaten eyes that held and very well hid the sneaking concern contradicted the sly tilt in his lips, telling her more about him than she thought she would know. This man had seen some shit that much she knew.

"Morning," He said, a certain breeziness that seemed unknowingly familiar in some way.

"Where am . . what . . how . . . " She spoke in a heavy Brooklyn accent, raspy as it was, Tony knew her roots before a finished sentence. She wanted to cradle her head, put pressure on her searing pain that sat in her mind like an animal carcass, it's stench growing the more she attempted to contemplate a single thought, let alone put anything to words.

"You alright?" He asked, stealing back her gaze as her chest heaved from time to time just to deflate back to its preferred state. "That was quite a scene," He pushed himself to stand, striking over to the medical basket beside her bed, her watchful eyes not leaving him for a moment's notice.

"Friday, vitals?" He spoke, eyes watching the instruments he tampered with below him.

"Vital signs are normal, but her heart beat is raging," The machine talked back, making her jump and become aware of a rising spike in her adrenaline, which just increased the speed of the infernal beeping.

"Try to calm down. You don't have any reason to be afraid," he soothed, turning to hold her gaze.

"Well how am I supposed to believe that?" She muttered in a shaken breath. Her brutally frightened emotions only came out as trying to be menacing, it hadn't worked yet.

"Oh so we can talk now, huh?" He took a seat on the bed beside where her covered legs lay, hands folded in front of him, resting on his lap. A small chuckle caressed her windpipe, a grin tilting her lips. 

"You really think these shackles can hold me back . . . doctor?" Her last word dripped with sarcasm, her all-knowing of the frumpy placed lab coat becoming apparent.

"That's up to you,"

Her grin faded, her eyes suddenly filled with urgency. "Where am I?"

"Where do you want you to be?"

"Where am I?" She narrowed her eyes, this time sounding more of an order than a mere question.

"You're not my director. I don't have to tell you anything you don't need knowing,"

"Perhaps it's time for the old swip-swap, since whomever your director is decided it was a good idea to handcuff someone like me to a medical bed again,"  
Tony narrowed his eyes, humor tilting the corners of his mouth. "Someone like you?"  
"Precisely," She sat back in her bed, the same bitter grin squinting her eyes at him. "How'd you goons loose track o' me this time?"  
"Pardon?"  
Her fingers lingered around the atmosphere of the beeping medical equipment, too advanced to be modern, and certainly nothing she had seen them use on her before. "Must have been gone a while. You boys got all new toys,"  
"Listen," Tony sat forward, curiosity clouding the storm of sensitivity that had moved in. "I don't know where you think you are, but it ain't it,"  
There came her maniacal laughter once again. "Look, I don't know if you're new around here, or you're just as dense as a cinderblock. If you're tryna confuse me, someone will be happy to escort me to recall?"  
"Recall?"  
"Yep. Dense it is,"  
Tony sighed in respect for her confidence. "You're in a recovery room, within the walls of a secure government facility compound in upper New York. You've been here for days. Out Cold,"  
The eagle orb plastered on the wall to her left now held her gaze, tiny strains of information gently lighting up in her head. She had seen it before . . .where? Her expression was whitewashed almost immediately, no effort remaining to hold her smile with everything bubbling her brain.  
"Which government?"  
"Land o the free . . . must come as a surprise,"  
"Did I have a reason to hurt anyone?" She asked almost immediately, realizing where the strain of her muscles had come from. Her question didn't exactly contain sense of worry, nor a care for anyone's wellbeing, but Tony takes things as he will. The sight of the man in the medical coat being thrown into the wall now wasn't so much of a mystery. Her outbreak of fright must have caused collateral damage . . . or else she wouldn't have felt like herself.  
"The staff is able to handle basically everything. Don't worry about it-"  
"That's not what i asked . . . I asked if I should have,"  
He only sighed before saying anything else. "It depends whether or not you got beef with SHIELD . . . or what's left of it,"  
"SHIELD . . . " she started, the slight smile creaking past her lips, not ready to let herself trail off too soon, trying to remain conscious and remain focused. "The SSR?"  
"The SSR? What do you know about-"  
"When am I?" She asked abruptly, stunning him with flashing eyes.  
"What? When?" He leaned forward in confusion.  
"What year is it?" She demanded through her teeth.  
He swallowed, sitting back at the realization he would only cause her to panic more than she was. "2016,"  
"Oh god . . . " She closed her eyes, at least trying to force it down. "Have I . . . did I die?"  
"That we don't know. We found you in . . . we found you somewhere that doesn't so much matter. We know just as much as you . . . most likely even less," Tony internally thanked himself for not spilling the beans. Her eyes spoke for themselves . . . she was terrified and telling her the truth her the truth of who she was . . . what he thought she was wasn't going to help anything. Still, a small glimmer of gilt shocked him as he watched her trap her lip in between her shaking teeth. "You gonna be okay?"  
"It wont matter to you. Just . . . " she shut her eyes, wanting but not being capable of accepting everything that happened, everything that was happening. She couldn't stop it so why bother trying? She propped herself up on one elbow, contorting her expression and burying herself in her own mind, digging for some memory valid enough to cling to. Every layer she passed only worsened the migraine she hadn't even noticed yet. She had so many questions she couldn't bring herself to trust this man with, no matter how much she wanted, needed the answers.  
"Got a name?"  
"Uh,"  
"You gotta have at least a name," he urged.  
"Well doesn't everybody?"  
"Touché," he bobbed his head. "Well it's a pleasure to meet ya, Noname,"  
"How'd you find me?" She asked, a dying sparkle in her deep brown eyes.  
"Isn't important. The importance is that we - I - was able to find you before I got out," He explained.  
"I'm guessing my next leave is to some cell, then?" She tilted her chin, absorbing the florescent light.  
"That's up to you. You can either corporate and answer my questions or I'll find out myself,"  
"So just a good game of good cop bad cop, then?" Her words dripped with sarcasm, something that was conventionally common to Tony, facial expressions and all. "You got a name, then?" She asked not bothering to be cautious.  
"Doesn't everybody," he still held his smile despite her frustrating grimace she shot his way. "Not a fan of irony?"  
"Hell if i know," she shrugged.  
"Anything you do know?"  
"I know a lot of things,"  
"Care to tell me?"  
She shook her head bitterly. "Not really. No,"  
~  
"Go into physical therapy for what, fifteen minutes? And everything goes to shit," Rhodey sighed heavily, throwing himself back into his wheel chair. Tony, one who is said to be less arrogant at times, mimicked his sigh in mockery.  
"Trust me, worse things have happened even when you're on your feet," Tony took a satisfied bite out of his chip, meeting Rhodey's frustrated glare with a jovial smile. "The breech in the prison was no accident,"  
"I don't see you doin' anything to stop it,"  
"Why try to stop something that's already been done?" Tony smirked.  
"You think they'll be coming for us?" Rhodey asked grimly.  
"What did you not understand about Steve's letter?" Tony furrowed his brows, leaning back against the table. "The remorse? The truce?"  
"Am I hearin' you correctly? Are you defending him right now?"  
"It's about time we all start to look at things a little differently,"  
"So that's it then. After everything he's done . . . it's just forgive and forget?"  
"I'll learn to forgive . . . but I sure as hell won't forget,"  
"You're being strangely uncharacteristic right now," Rhodey wheeled himself behind Tony who led them in front of a crystal clear glass wall overlooking the compound courtyard. The tanks and other weapons and machinery were at a standstill and had been that way for the last few days at the overturn of the brawl.  
It had been something they would never have the privilege to forget given the extensive damage to the world as to themselves. To Tony, who stood erect feeling the heaviness of the phone Steve had sent him sitting in his pocket, it changed everything. His team would never be the same as for the way he thought of them, which would also change dramatically and morph into something else entirely. The number of present avengers was extremely limited. Including him, only Rhodey, and Vision's locations were known and were restricted to the compound. Natasha had gone AWOL after the scuffle in Germany and Panther had disappeared to wherever it had best suited him. As for the rest of the crew, the last time Tony had seen them was in blue slacks behind bars. The prison's breach had not been exactly a drastic blow to Tony who refused to admit or accept the relief that washed over him after hanging up General Ross's distress call.  
"We got a name, yet?" Rhodey asked, his lips pursing at the sunlit glass. "The girl in the medical wing ...she woke up right?"  
"She said we'll know as soon as she does,"  
"Anymore hostility on her part? Because my fist is itching," He balled his fingers up, his knuckles turning white as the flash of a memory plunged into their heads.  
"She was just scared, R, she's not gonna lash out again," Tony soothed without meeting his crippled friend's gaze.  
"You expect me to trust her?"  
"I expect you to trust me," Rhodey sighed heavily, accepting the brutal truth in Tony's words. He had more choices than he thought he had but only one of them seemed appealing for the time being.  
"You goin' after them?" Rhodey asked starring out of the glass.  
"If they wanna be found we won't have to, but until then," he snatched Rhodey's glance. "We gotta stay grounded,"  
"Oh no, uh huh, Tony that ain't funny," Tony laughed heading towards the elevator with an angry Rhodey wheeling behind him, pointing at his overly ironic comment.  
"Kinda funny," Tony remarked, leaning over to the same button he had pressed five times that same day.  
It has been exactly eight hours, twenty three minutes and five seconds  
six seconds  
seven seconds  
The ticking clock hanging on the wall parallel to her medical bed was the only thing to keep her mind from self destructing besides chewing on her purpling nails. Thank goodness Tony had come to check on her from time to time, giving her something to distract her from . . . everything. His absences never had more than an hour in between them, giving her time to approximate how much she trusted him which steadily grew as the hours ticked by. The nurses who wore the same features she remembered assaulting came in and out to either take her blood pressure, check her vital signs, all with a toxic caution she couldn't help but look away from.  
She was ensnared in the bosom of her own mind, not thinking more like attempting.  
Flashes of black, white sometimes grey flashed across her bewildered brain, bringing with it emotions that couldn't be tied down to anything that was there, so instead she let the feelings flutter. They flew around her like butterflies, never daring to stray too far even when Tony offered her the chance to leave her bed. She was too unstable to take up the offer and she knew Tony didn't care especially when he insisted she had to accept.  
Vision, whom she had been introduced to a number of hours before, tried his best to help her morph into a clear set mind . . . the first day out would always be remembered as the least forgiving. Given his rather strange appearance that in itself told her he wasn't human, she simply accepted him without much question, knowing she didn't want to hear the real answer. It was still a challenge for the new-born Vision, while he himself was still adjusting to the modern world and to the behavior of humanity and its inhabitants. His efforts to relate to her, to calm her only made matters worse. He understood the concept of PTSD, shell shock, and other effects of trauma for he had seen it take its toll within his team more than once. The great difference was that when they were faced with it, they understood what was happening and what needed to be done, but Noname had no idea what she was going through nor how to stop it. She would scream, thrash about and more often than not that day, have to be sedated. But on the rare occasion when she was calm, staring into no where, Vision found it best to attempt to create conversation.  
"Banana?" The innocent yellow fruit stole her attention from where she stood at the window, turning from the glass. She caught the cautious gaze of its barer; his crystal blue eyes weighing the options of what to say and what to think of hers. Her eyes dashed bitterly, back and fourth between where he stood in the door frame and the fruit.  
"What?" She muttered, eyebrows now in a frustration of a furrow. Vision collected himself at her questioning, his easy mind trying to find a way to phrase his reasoning.  
"I have never eaten one myself, but, I know they are full of Potassium and that fills you with a great deal of energy. Your constant and strangely distant stares tell me you're fatigued-"  
"I don't want the banana, and I'm good without the science essay, too," She sighed. Her attention went back onto the boring, clear glass containing no shapes she hadn't already studied and could use as any sort of distraction.  
"Maybe a cup of caffeinated coffee?"  
"VISION, I think I'll manage," She spat, an unexpected amount of sass accompanying her mismark.  
"My apologies, I understand,"  
"I-I'm sorry," regretting her tone as a reaction to his pure kindness.  
"It's quite alright, I understand what you're going through," He pronounced his words carefully, fatherly eyes flickering between her crazed black ones.  
"I honestly doubt that,"  
"You are going through something called cognitive dissonance,"  
"Cognitive whato-nance?" She asked shaking her head at the unexpected large vocabulary.  
"In simpler terms, it is a period of unknown, and unfamiliarity. You are confused, frightened, so you use anger as a defense mechanism," He concluded with a thorough nod as she stood in stunned silence.  
"Well did you expect anything less?" She asked brutally, crossing her arms.  
"I'm sorry?" He pardoned questioningly. She shrugged off before Vision had the chance to stop her but managed to gently pull her back into the distant conversation. "Do spare me the details of your inner most thoughts, would you?"  
"Well Mr. Subtle . . . I mean there are so many conflicting realities in my head, and the worst part is I don't know which one is real and which ones aren't,"  
"They're all as real as you imagine them to be, you just need to establish which one you will accept," He explained in his deep accent.  
"I don't know,"  
"Well you don't seem to know much of anything, do you?" He smiled.  
"Well what did you expect?" She spat, feet shuffling about her space uneasily.  
"I expected what I see now; you're human,"  
Yeah. Human. More like a bitter excuse for one.  
"Do you even have an appetite?" Tony asked hours later, stealing Noname's attention from the descending sun outside the window. She never seemed to be left alone. Tony decided it was best to excuse himself after her shrug was extremely indifferent, accepting she was craving her lonesome.  
The sunset was familiar in the most unsettling way and while she hoped it would cause her peace it only began to unease her fragile being more and more. She found herself stuck in that small space of unknown, struggling to find a single memory to tie the familiar colors down to. She had tried . . . ever since she had opened her eyes there hadn't anything she could accept as reality without the guilt eating her alive.  
She watched as the darkness slowly swallowed up the courtyard, it's surrounding trees becoming swaying ghosts in the night time breeze. She had to find something to stare at or something that would ease her mind of the pain . . . because she sure as hell wasn't going back to sleep.


	2. Demon's Impact

Somewhere over the Atlantic ; May 12, 2016

The quinjet flew in silence over the mid-morning clouds, the silence cutting thick both inside and out. The wave of past relief hung in the air, yet the uncertainty for what was to happen next overpowered it, its ranking stench warping their minds. Steve sat anchored in the cockpit, eyes hopelessly glued on the impending horizon as the tightening of his grasp around the clutch whitened his knuckles.

"So," Sam muttered, leaning over from behind the steadying seat, just close enough for his comrade to hear. "What do we do now?"

A hearty yet barely audible and greatly unexpected chuckle escaped Steve, a smirk tilting his lips. "I'm open to suggestions,"

The War had taken its toll and with Zemo behind multiple sets of bars, there was no common enemy there was just a common goal; peace. The Avengers had pursued peace ever since the Battle in Manhattan when hell rained its fire from the sky and almost snatching their hope right from them.

"What about Mr. Stark?" Scott asked, leaning against the wall.

"Tony? What about him?" Sam offered.

"Tony got my letter, that much I know, which also means that when that phone goes off we can't ignore it," Steve pointed at the minuscule flip phone set on the surface in the cockpit, striking a bit of inevitable hope into those who saw it, and those who saw it; accepted it.

"What are you saying?" Wanda asked, hands folded across her chest as she stood up into the corner.

"This isn't exactly a team, it's not like we were before . . . but that doesn't mean it can't still be," Steve sighed, bobbing his head striking adrenaline into the others. "It's time to get things back to the way they were. Let's take back what's ours,"

Sam grinned. "About damn time,"

"We're gonna need help. A base," Clint offered. "And my place ain't an option,"

Steve looked up. "I got a place," Steve of course withheld the information of where he set the quinjet to land until it was too late to turn back. Bucky of course was the first to know.

"Wakanda?" Bucky spat. "Steve, are you insane?"

"It isn't gonna be like it was a few days ago," Steve soothed, placing his hand firmly and reassuringly on Bucky's shoulder.

"He wants me dead. He's tried, four times, actually," His eyebrows knitted together in a frustration of a furrow as he tried to contemplate Steve's ludicrous.

"He understands your innocence now, Buck. It's gonna be fine," Steve's hands found themselves to rest on his belt buckle watching Bucky's unstable nerves take a toll on his steel blue eyes. "He's responsible for Zemo's capture,"

"I guess you're right. There should be a reason he didn't jump to claw my brains out back at the base," Bucky's gaze dropped to the floor as the memory wiped his mind white. 

Zemo was locked up back under Everett Ross's supervision, given the not exactly failure of his efforts. Instead, betrayal replaced initiation, turning the team against each other. Not to mention, half of the Avengers were now criminals and fugitives to the US government.

"Things are changing," Bucky continued. "Might as well get used to it," Steve gave him a loving shoulder grab, striking a small smile which was reciprocated not too long after.

"After everything we've been through you'd imagine you wouldn't have already accepted the ugly truth of change," Steve nodded stoutly.

"Yeah. I mean I still gotta remind myself you're still that little bubbling blonde from Brooklyn," Bucky grinned, Steve bobbing his head with a sarcastic smile plastered on his face.

"Well, at least I was strong enough not to fall off the back of a hitch-hiked freezer truck," Bucky rolled his eyes, letting his smile consume his expression as a whole.

"So," Wanda intruded with folded arms hovering below their line of vision. "What do you expect of us when we land?" Steve expected nothing. To be brutally honest, he wasn't sure what to expect. He usually wasn't so impulsive, but given that was a lie, he was following the impulsive instincts that always bared their teeth when he was faced with making a tough decision.

Congratulations Cap. You're a criminal.

Rhodey's words of truth still rang through his mind, he himself being unable to put it to rest. Going back to the US wasn't an option as it was a death wish. He was a fugitive, a criminal, and yet all he did was do what he had been taught to do; he stood up for what he thought was right and it turned out he wasn't standing alone. Yet, there was someone who had to take charge and take responsibility for everything that had happened, and he was as always ready to take every ounce of blame anyone could hope to throw upon the others. The impending hours just ate up the distance between them and Bucky's ex-pursuer, who shook Bucky's nerves the more his mind waded into it.

"Still worried, pal?" Steve asked, plopping himself down next to Bucky.

"Not for myself, I stopped those egotistical thoughts before any further damage,"

"Then what's makin' you all uneasy?"

"It's not what might happen to me, it's what I might do,"

"Zemo's locked up,"

"Yeah well so is everything hydra put inside me, but there's a key and when someone unlocks it and I lose control . . . and I don't think we can deal with something like that again. Not any of us," Steve stared at Bucky and his distressed, watchful eyes that had changed more than he could say. The fear Steve saw was real and it wouldn't leave anytime soon. The nerves inside Bucky refused to settle, even after they descended easily into Wakanda. Even after all the hospitality T'chlla offered them and the understanding he eased toward Bucky, he refused to accept it. It didn't get easier.

Being around as many people that were in the Palace only made things harder for him, his inner most thoughts contorting into a hurricane. He attempted to deal with the awful lure of his inner demons, addressing them before they strayed to close to his consciousness . . . until he couldn't take it anymore.

"Are you sure about this?" Steve asked, making way across the room to where Bucky sat on the medical bed.

Bucky sighed, taking Steve's guilty posture with a grain of salt. "I can't trust my own mind," He shook his head, flashing an unexpected smile up at his friend whose day was getting worse. "So until they figure out how to get this stuff out of my head I think going under is the best thing . . . . for everybody,"

Steve knew why Bucky didn't want to stay, but he didn't understand. He loved Bucky, he respected him and his decision of valor, but it still meant he wouldn't be around. It was the best thing for right now, they already had things to worry about since they had gotten to Wakanda just days before. T'challa had welcomed them with open arms and most   
importantly, forgiveness.

"Thank you for this," Steve told T'challa as they stood side by side in front of the glass.

"Your friend and my father . . . they were both victims. If I can help one of them find peace,"

"You know if they find out he's here . . . they'll come for him,"

"Let them try,"

There was prolonged silence mostly due to the fact that their hearts were so heavy they had to pause. T'challa's hands placed regally behind his back, Steve's stuffed into his pockets. Two concurring sides of the war now finding themselves better allies than either of them had learned to know. The transition had been a rough one for everyone and had taken them all a bit of time to adjust. Steve and the others had arrived mere days before, exiting their quinjet with shell shock and distance.

"Clint, you okay?" Steve remembered asking.

"I can't Cap," He shook his head, holding it up and beginning to pace subtly at the foot of the king sized bed that was stationed in his given room.

"This is about the Raft,"

"It's not just the raft, man. I'm tired, I've been tried a long time, I can't put my family through anymore of this," Daddies gonna be back, I promise.  
Clint's decision to go back to the states had been one Steve couldn't bring himself to agree with but he knew he had deal with it. He was a wanted man; by SHIELD and no how the US government. He knew people were hunting him, his family wasn't put on hold to know, but Clint couldn't put them in danger, either. His plan was convoluted, it was idiotic, but it was Clint Barton's idea . . . and that in itself could discard the laws of gravity. Scott had taken an interest in Clint's plan, and was the only one whom Clint had told the information too. After all, Scott's little girl was going through the same thing Clint's kids were going through, too.

"Mr. Stark," T'challa said breaking the silence incoherently. "You did not kill him,"

"Tony was my friend. I never meant to hurt him,"

"And yet would you?"

"If I had to, yes," Steve finally sighed. "In the end...at the end, he was only after vengeance. I would've done the same for anyone. In that moment Tony knew himself to be in the wrong...and he went after Buck anyways,"

"One may say he was emotionally compromised. By the death of a parent. I would know something of this,"

"I gave him every opportunity to choose. He chose vengeance. I chose to protect my friend. I...I'm not better than him. In that moment he became just one more person taking Buck away from me, one more person who'd hurt him. A face for HYDRA, Zola, even. I didn't kill him, T'challa, but I wanted to,"

"But you chose not to,"

"No,"

"You did not sign,"

Steve gave a sad smile. "A father had two sons. He said to one, go down to the vineyard. The first son said, I will go, but he lied. The second said I will not go, but later he repented and went. Tell me, which of the two did what the father requested?"

"A Parable," T'challa said. "It is very wise of you and compliments your refusal to sign. You don't take in everything the law says as fact instead you choose to venture to ladder options,"

"Is that a life long fact or a new born truth to you ...because it wasn't very compelling to you when you signed."

"I would say the ladder option," tchalla was smiling. "You?"

"I knew from the beginning my name wasn't ever gonna be on that paper."

"Yet in signing, you may have protected your friend from within the law. I am curious, why not?"

"It was the law that was trying to kill him. If it had happened differently...you could have been pursuing him not for revenge but because it was the right thing to do,"

"That is to say, had my father not been murdered,"

"Shit. Sorry, I, uh," Steve's shoulders slumped. " I—I know what it's like to lose a parent,"

"Now as do I. But you are mistaken, my friend. Simply because one is ordered, simply because it is the law, does not in it make a thing right,"

"On that, your Highness, we can both agree,"

"Tell me, Steven, why would you not sign?"

"You know what the Star of David is?"

"A religious emblem of Jewish faith. Wakanda is isolated, not ignorant. And yet I believe you are Catholic. Why?"

"It's more than that, pal. In the War—during my war, you understand—the Nazis used it to brand Jewish neighborhoods, turned them into Jewish ghettos, and finally shipped them off to die in Jewish camps. Buck and I...we liberated a few of 'em. With the Commandos, and it...it wasn't enough. It was never enough. And you stand there, you look around, the gas chambers, the mass graves, the shooting squads trying to kill prisoners before the Allied forces' advancement...and it strikes you that all this death, all this evil, all this hate and pain and suffering...somewhere, somehow, it all just started out as simple registration. Just one piece of paper with some signatures on it. And that's all it takes,"

"This thought had not occurred to me,"

"The Accords required Registration, not just UN approval. It was in the fine print, the sort of thing that gets glossed over in a three hundred page document after an international incident. People lost their lives. And that's on us, one me. But I—I read it, I re-read it, and I realized this was a way for a government to control, to terrorize its people. Registration was required, for both Mutant and Artificially Enhanced alike. Regardless of age, nationality, gender, sexuality...regardless of their combatant status. It wasn't freedom, not protection, it was fear. It's registration, its internment, it's inequality, and it leads to terrible things. Locking Wanda away out of fear? Where would it stop? I've seen it before. Jews, Japanese, queers, Romani...hell, the Wind talkers were Navajo and when the war was over they were sent back to reservations where their religion and language were still illegal. Their children were taken away, and within a generation they were extradited across the country for forced assimilation into white US culture. I just—I can't do that. I won't be a part of that," he took a deep, shaking breath. "Not even on the periphery. Not for anyone. Not even for Bucky,"

"You saw the horrors of the past and would seek to prevent them. And for that reason you would not sign,"

"Maybe I was wrong, maybe I'll never know," Steve admitted. "But I don't regret it,"

"You would do anything for your friend, would you not, Captain?"

"Pal, you've got no idea,"

"No, my friend. I believe I do. This is a Wakandan research facility under the auspices of the crown," T'challa said. "Yet simply because privacy and security are assured one would be a fool to believe there are no cameras,"

Steve Rogers flushed. "You uh...you saw that, then?"

"In my culture, such things are not frowned upon. It was your white colonists who brought these ideas to Africa. Steven, my friend, you are welcome here. Friendships are as crucial to maintain as family. You have nothing to fear from me,"

"Thank you," Steve choked. "For this,"

There were no more words spoken; just silent smiles interchanged between them. They were slow in shifting to nothing, Steve finding T'challas lead as they looked off into the jungle.


	3. Her Mind Cried Fire

The Avengers Compound ; Upstate, New York ; May 13, 2016

"Sir. I don't believe Miss Noname would be fond to find out you're having me spy on her," he heard Friday scold not bothering to look up from the computer screen. He was nothing less than baffled at her strength, albeit knowing exactly what she was, it still surprised him.

He had met Barnes; a similar situation to the one he was now dealing with. He hadn't known him, all Tony knew about that man was what he did to his parents. To Steve, Bucky was his best friend and it was easy to see, but to Tony he was no less than a killer. During the war that split the team, Tony didn't exactly get up close and personal with the ex-Soviet before it all went downhill in the final battle, but what he thought then was polar opposite to what he didn't want to accept now. If Barnes was anything like Noname, if they shared any of the same pulls of darkness or were lured into the same shrieking nightmares Tony had watched her endure, then Tony could learn to understand Barnes more. Was it too late? He didn't know, nor did he gather much of his attention as Noname did.

"It's not spying," he spat back. "I don't want her to get herself into trouble. She's too unstable to be left alone, and I'm on the clock 24/7 as long as she's here. In the meantime, back up the hard drive,"

Tony swung out his swivel chair from his desk, nonchalantly jumping to face the back wall. A black, holographic projection covered it soon after his lazy touch allowing him to swipe into what he had been preparing.

"Run decryption," He muttered, watching as an array of black and white videos, photo renderings and files captivated most of the wall. He took a few steps back, his vision panning what he now understood to be a compilation of mission reports and agentry files.

Friday spoke monotone. "All files, restored,"

Tony clutched his chin, staring wide eyed at what was coming more and more clear to be familiar to him . . . a face he wouldn't soon forget. A zoo of Noname suddenly became clear, matching every video archive, picture and report he was looking at. After zooming in and reading a brief description of what the picture held he still needed proof.

"What's the date this picture was taken?" He asked, not daring to turn away from the familiar, black eyes that stared back at him.

"Photograph taken November 22nd, 1963,"

"Location?"

"New Jersey,"

"Is that who I think it is?"

"It seems as though you already know, sir,"

Tony stepped forward to bring back the entire compilation into view, grazing across the screen to zoom in on an album of photographs. They were all in screaming black and white, a vintage dust over the film. The same two eyes appeared in every picture; their dark texture not always pointed at the camera, but otherwise occupied. Tony had known all along where she came from, but not everything, which explained why he was so desperate to know more. For all he knew she had been a simply another patient among many others beside her, an asset in the program. Hydra had seen her as another guinea pig, experiment after experiment, but never dared her release into the field. According to his earlier accusations she had been a pre-winter soldier, never possessed nor burdened with a mission . . . Tony hadn't expected this. He didn't want to believe it, either.  
It was her alright, with the same hair and the same structured jaw and cheekbones. Her grin screamed back at Tony, knowing if she ever did smile that's what it would look like. Her darkened lips could only be taken as dark red; easily seen through the black and white wash. Her hair was groomed and softly pinned back showing off her large earrings in most of the bearings. It was only when he looked up did he see the many titles of the albums, all depicting different years in order.

"How long does this go back?" He asked, stepping forward to flip severely to the right.

"It began in 1941 and continued until 1991,"

"The same year the Soviet Union was abolished? Don't think that's a coincidence. Show me her last photo shoot,"

The last picture was definitely her, the pictures conforming more and more to fit her current features Tony had seen. The finale of photographs were old as hell, their vintage dust only described as chilling, but nothing Tony didn't recognize. She was sleeping . . . most likely unconscious, placed behind a thick, foggy glass, how Tony had first seen her through the dark. Her lips were parted on her face aligned in black and blue shades. But what Tony couldn't get over was that the cryo freeze had freezer burnt her face, which finally explained the soft scars he had seen along her jawline, not too tough to see unless you were up close.

The top of the file there sat a name, surname and what looked to be a nickname.

"Clara." He spoke softly.

"Sir?"

"Her name. Clara Jacqueline Fray. Born 1916 in Brooklyn, New York." Tony felt as though a bullet had been pushed through his abdomen, dumbfounded at the knowledge of her name being now in the open. "Her family called her CJ . . . " He trailed off and embraced the silence, trying his best not too feel too much pity for this soul. "Well Zemo wasn't just an ass, he wasn't too careful either," Tony sighed at Zemo's lazy efforts, the possibly he let her live not able to escape his attention. If he had let her live, there would only be one reason, the reason he had done everything he chose to sit back and let happen. He was clouded by vengeance and had let it consume him . . . an instinct Tony had grown   
accustomed to trying to disregard.

"What if she's a time bomb?" Tony suddenly asked into the dense air, dropping his gaze at the possibility.

"Sir?"

"What if Zemo planted a little kill chip in her head to make sure we get caught in the crossfire?"

"I'm not sure Zemo thought to have a plan B," Tony heard Visions deep accent from behind him, knowing he must have undermined the lock and used the wall. "If miss Noname needed you off the map she would have done it already,"

Tony turned on his heel. "What if we're not the ones she's after?"

"Wakanda is miles away, she would need-"

"What she would need is our trust and she's got yours,"

"She isn't innocent but she isn't like that anymore,"

Tony rolled his eyes disdainfully. "Oh and how are you supposed to prove that?"

"She is peaceful. She doesn't know what she is . . . or was,"

"So you knew?" Tony bitterly smiled, watching vision sigh in defeat. "What is it with people keeping this kind of stuff from me? Is it like a game?"

Vision sighed with reluctance, trying to dumb down the severity of the situation. "We all knew she was one of their lab rats, we just didn't know what she had accomplished under their control. What are you to do now that you know the truth?"

"I can't just have some ex assassin running rapid through the compound,"

Vision's head was shaking slowly in a continuous manner, urging him off the thought without any use of words.

"If she's planning any shit I gotta be the one to make sure she won't succeed-" his puny chance to escape Visions grasp disappeared as soon as it made itself known. His repressed hand held firm around Tony's forearm, as the baffled billionaires efforts had only gotten his grasp around the door knob.

"I urge you to see further into the situation before taking any manner of action,"

"Whose side are you on?"

"I'm not with you neither am I against you. I am for peace and you will only diminish the small sliver we have salvaged if I let you proceed," His eyes pierced his coldly.

"I already lost my dad . . . I sure as hell don't need another one,"

"I am not trying to fill a parental role for you, Tony. I am concerned-"

"For her well being?"

"For yours,"

Not even Vision, in all his conscious wisdom could repress Tony's mind when he set it to something. Tony didn't take anything he didn't agree with. Everything he heard, albeit he didn't agree, went in one ear and out the other. Bullets had left guns slower. He gathered all the dignity and confidence he had left to spare, collected it in a bundle and blasted straight past Vision out to the hallway.

"Tony you're jumping to conclusions," Vision struggled to keep up with Tony's confident strut

"Buddy I'm upsurging to conclusions," he called over his shoulder without the care of a glance. "That's what i do best,"

"What do you think this will prove, Tony? What are you to do? You have no agreeably solid evidence-"

"Did you not see the holographic projection of death, back there?" He obscurely hauled in which Vision took the opportunity to, as well. "She is a killer!"

Vision knew what made Tony this way, he had only seen him act the way he was when one situation was tied down with another one. This particular turn of events and his reactions had been triggered by the only other surviving winter soldier he had ever been in contact with, the one he had longed to kill. Tony hadn't dare told anyone about what happened under that Siberian base upon his return, the way he had carried himself to his room said enough in itself . . . the way he had carried that symbol of broken faith along with him like a clipped eagle. He could still hear the echo of the broken loyalty bouncing around the walls of his mind.

"That shield doesn't belong to you. You don't deserve it. My father made that shield,"

The next noise that could only be blamed for breaking the silence was the vibrainium plundering to the ground, it's echo never seeming to end. It was followed thereafter by footsteps; Steve, dragging both of them away from the despair lying behind them. Steve ignored the pain pushing in from every square inch of his fatigued body for just long enough to tow the bloodstained Bucky out from underneath the cover of the scarlet-stained atmosphere. Both breaths were still catching on themselves, making their prior efforts very clear to the pair of eyes still glued to them.

Sitting by the backdrop of the Siberian snow; Tony sat back like an infant, regret pushing his tears forward. Steve's battle cries still rang true in his ears, the ghost of his tattered   
fist lingering on his cheeks, Tony's inevitable fear blocking the red rage out like a gate. The fire in Steve's eyes still branded his, leaving Tony with nothing to think about but whether or not that vision would ever leave him. It took everything Tony had to not pull himself from the ground, go and finish the fight with the same man who finished off his parents, give Steve a reason to turn back and kill him.

The only thing left fueling that thought was anger . . . and no matter how hard Tony tried, he couldn't harvest enough of that up to get back onto his feet.

"A killer whom you seem to care an awful lot about,"

"Oh and you'd know a thing or two about that,"

The bionic man's back suddenly straightened, his nerves, whilst artificial, bending in towards the other in distress. He exhaled deeply, his only defense seeing how Tony had just crossed a line. "If my memory is correct, which is seems quite so, it was not my doing what happened to her,"

"Oh so it's come to that again? Arguing over whose fault is was that Wanda ended up in that place?" Tony snapped, his patience wearing thin much like the upright machine standing in his way. "Wanda was your responsibility!"

"She's not a child, Tony,"

"Then why'd you treat her like one?"

Not even medical wing walls were enough to stop their argument from emitting into her severely damaged ears, more importantly their topic of conversation, and it was too familiar as all she thought about was herself. And it planted more seeds in her mind than she had time to think them over. Come dusk she would be lost to them who saw themselves as suitable hosts. For the action of leaving her alone with her own thoughts was reserved for fools, and those who wished for departure from this world.  
Night came sooner than she thought it would, settling over the compound with twinkling lights outside her window she stared innocently after. They almost made her forget what she had to do. Her thoughts bounced in her head like a pinball machine, remembering his mention of New York, more importantly the fact that that was their location. She glanced over at the glowing light radiating from the clock up on the wall, upon seeing that big hand was at the 1, she turned away at a sudden ringing that penetrated her left ear. This late, yet her muscles urged to do something, push her from the sheets, stand her on her feet, lead her to any answers she could hope to salvage. Her new "handler" of sorts had began to take a fancy for her; he even opted upon removal of her restraints. She laughed harshly at his ignorance, underestimating her for who she knew she was, for what she had done. It was then when she was sure he wasn't with Hydra, that this wasn't hydra either. She couldn't remember a time when she wasn't monitored, restrained to a metal bed without the privilege of linen, without the privilege of free will. A time when her brainwaves and thought patterns weren't being monitored was beyond her recollection, so was a time when she could touch the floor without being thrown across it.

Before she knew what was happening, the iv's and tubes were being ripped from her skin by her own fear. Her expression was as still as a corpse; and even more frightening as it was deafening. Rising from the hospital bed, she grabbed the tube of the IV bag and tied it around her waist, quickly and without flinching as it caressed her wounds beneath, making a sort of belt to keep her hospital gown in order. The bright lighting of the hallway wasn't the best help and neither was the two options of directions it forced upon her. She leaned out from the cover of the door frame into what looked like an isolated hallway, not hesitating soon after to start running right into the emptiness. The only audible sound was her bare feet on the cold floor and the slight ring that never seemed to leave her alone. She flashed a furrowed yet cautious gaze behind her shoulder from time to time making sure the rhythm of her running didn't skip a beat. Every open door she passed seemed to bear the same likeness as the room she had been shamelessly stowed in for the last 48 hours; the same glass wall and the same empty bed.

All her efforts went into praying to god she wouldn't get caught. Regardless of her dominating strength she found herself capable of, she just didn't want to have to hurt anyone else to leave. What was his name? Tony? She didn't trust him as far as she could throw him . . . retracting the thought soon after the realization she could do him quite a distance. The small amount of trust he had gained had faded just as soon as she felt it lump up in her throat. She refused to be taken as a fool, and a trusting heart was the first step. She kicked one foot out from the other, moving fast to outrun any silent alarms that may have followed her like a ghost. Navigating down the halls, her mind was more clouded than her vision, as so to say. The mere and suspended amount of training she could remember had payed off, though; she moved quietly and quickly to the elevator, but was met with an awful turn of events which reminded her plain sight was just another place to hide in.

She wouldn't be caught making that mistake again.

"Hey, what the fu-" The burly guard shouted, moving to draw his taser, yet being quickly taken down by his opposite. She pushed him into the elevator with her, taking his pistol along with her tired fingers. But apparently his call of confusion attracted enough attention as she exited the elevator to be met with a faint alarm and stomping boots. She ran, discarding stealth, and bolted to the first exit she deemed reachable.

"Stop!"

"On the ground, now!"

She ignored the orders she heard rearing up behind her way throwing herself through doors whose locks didn't stand a chance when her force met the barrier, only to be stopped in her tracks by a dead end.

"On your fuckin' knees!"

Noname leveled her pistol as the men closed in, aligned perfectly at a stand and point. But her body wouldn't pull the trigger. Her mind cried fire, but she couldn't bring herself to apply the lightest pressure on the trigger that welcomed her with tempting familiarity, with comfort she otherwise wouldn't think twice about embracing. Her realization of this was short lived, as a barb implanted itself inside her thigh, sending high voltage control through her. She managed to remain standing, even though she knew there was something special in there she wouldn't stand up to, firing down at the floor between the guards, watching them flinch and let off the taser. She bolted past, moving as quickly as   
she could towards a newly spotted exit, eventually coming to a garage full off vehicles of all sizes, and of all bewilderment for Noname, of course.

"Talk to me, Fri," Tony pressed his palms up against his tired eyes, resilience from his slumber not coming easy as it usually had.

"She moved down to the vehicle bay, taking out staff and withstanding a rather hefty taser shot,"

"Those shots could drop even Barnes in a few seconds," Rhodes yawned, being bothered by the alert. Neither man was fully awake yet, and the situation did nothing but frustrate them . . . well, one of them. Tony refused to show the worrisome expression he would let free if he was alone, if he knew Rhodey was looking up to him for guidance.

"Shes armed as well. A Glock 17 is missing from the incapacitated guard found unconscious in the elevator, and shes been reported in possession of that same firearm,"

"Smart girl,"

Tony ignored the remark and analyzed the situation with as critical of a mind as he could at 2AM. His mind burned with the single question of why the hell he thought it to be a good idea to remove her shackles.

"Mr. Stark?"

"Friday, what is it?"

"Noname has fled. Now mobile,"

"What? How? In what?" Tony didn't bother letting his sleepiness get in the way of him and the garage. She skidded to a halt upon entrance, staring in horror at the single empty spot with his name painted on the pavement. "She took the Lambo,"


	4. Friends in Low Places

Upstate, New York ; May 13, 2016

The smooth leather interior of the Lamborghini felt almost unnatural under her calloused touch. It's shininess was awing, especially in comparison to the ghost of the torn up, ancient fabric she felt between her fingertips. The engine below her eased on, taking her out of the woods to the zoo of a highway where she found herself shoulder to shoulder with the most unnaturally aerodynamic of vehicles. Her destination was just as empty as her mind was; it was nothing. She had but no clue as to where this terrifying car was taking her, or where she was taking herself, all she knew was that she needed to put as much distance between herself and the compound as possible. The shadow of the shackles and holding devices still lingered on her skin, overlapping the black fabric that lay in between. Nevertheless, the same people who had restrained her wouldn't pass up on trying to   
do it again, which is why the needle of the speedometer wouldn't stop rising.

She found herself sweating, wiping the salty liquid from her brow before it had time to roll down into her face. Her sweat beaded at the top of her head, for no reason except her raging heart beat. She sat; shoulders high and hunched over the wheel, turning back and forth in the largest of hurries, trying to navigate this world she had no idea how she got to. The hours soon piled upon the others, taking her from the almost-comfort of the surrounding trees to the anxiety of the parading Queens traffic. Unnaturally loud horns honked up her rear, accompanying the bottle-in-a-bag bums who felt it necessary to slap down on the hood when she didn't stop at the white lines painted across the road.  
The sun left sooner than anyone thought it would have, taking the majority of the traffic with it. There weren't any signs with arrows painted on them now where she found herself, just run down houses perched next to miserably crumbly buildings. The trees were withered, hanging over the weed-intruded sidewalks which possessed more cracks than sturdy pavement. Every once in a while, one or another house would blast what she recognized to be music, but it was nothing that had crossed her ears before. It was loud, awfully obnoxious and would only be accompanied by neon lights that danced out from the barred windows of the plotted houses.

"Shit," she plopped herself down on the crumbly curve, seated directly parallel to the dreadfully empty car. It sat in silence, as her, mocking her from where she had pulled it over to the side of the road. She wasn't an idiot, but she had forgotten that cars didn't run on air. The needle on the gas tank had snuck up on the E faster than she thought it would, given she hadn't spared it a fraction of thought. The night that she had been so eager to embrace long ago crawled along the length of the neighborhood to where she sat, a pawn, on the lonely pavement. She was constantly vigilant, eyes creeping past her shoulders every few hazing moments, reminding herself she could take anything that could take up the gap that was her 6 o'clock. The soles of her aching feet beckoned the sneakers straight off from her skin, stretching out her bare feet onto the painfully quiet road.

Before anyone could guess, before any single parents had the time to look past the tattered blinds and sneak a peak at the abandoned lambo sitting by the curb, the car and its presence was deserted. The futuristic glow of the modernized ghetto held none of her attention, for the gab in her mind was occupied with total ignorance. She had already seen too much, experienced everything she didn't reconcile in the mere days since she had woken up. It wasn't that she longed to save her experiences and savor every moment like some naive college student, what she really wanted was to know what she needed. She, and no doubt the rest of existence, was doing fine 48 hours before the poor lighting of the hospital wing had stung her eyes. Everything must have been adequate, right? Again, she was definitely no idiot, intelligence came naturally to her. She longed to know things she couldn't understand and understand everything she didn't know. She apprehended enough of all the external and internal signals she received to differentiate reality from fantasy. She knew who she was, what she was. She knew where she came from, who trained her and that the wipes were never fully effective. The hours watered down the white noise that constantly rang like some fire engine in her ears and eventually hydras fog was completely washed out only to return after distant memories of a place called Brooklyn she let slip past her lips.

"Soldat?" She spun around quickly, checking her six which she thought would occupy at least one person, the single word dripping with Russian control, more importantly familiarity. She didn't have time to stray too long at the long past lingering moment before seeing a pair of headlights turn her way up the road. She ducked into a nearby alleyway, pinned against the wall and ever so calmly watched as the unsuspecting driver leered past her. Around her, steam rose up from building basements, the entire narrow, alley illuminated by a single, flickering lamppost hanging above her head.

She had no breath to catch, for being unseen came as even less than no challenge to her, the ghost of prior experience preventing her from slipping up.  
Everything about the atmosphere was eerie, even for someone that had seen as much as she had. It smelled like a musty poker night, a tinge of past woes and a glimmer of scarlet ooze testing the waters. She would have had goosebumps if it weren't for her quickening pace to get out of there as fast as she could. Distant sirens ingested her hearing, their howls letting her know where she was. It was New York City alright, but too far from how she remembered it to be itself. She was walking in the west side of queens, which she remembered doing a lot but not enough, the details were too blury. She knew enough to know where she was, but not enough to feel the same as the times before. It was a punishment she knew she would come to deserve, to feel hopeless and trapped in a world of two conflicting realities. The difference for her was, that she knew they were both true, yet to what extent?

Don't you dare. she suddenly heard, realizing she was scolding herself from the inside out. Her eyes had caught and hurriedly clung to a small crack between a window sill and it's pane, watching the drab curtains flow from the wind of the alleyway. I swear to God don't you do it.

There's nowhere else to go.

Look away. Keep walking. Find something else that will solve your problems.

It looks warm in there.

You'll regret it. It's breaking and entering.

It's not breaking, the window's op-

Shut up.

There might be food. A bed.

There might be a fucking person, too. I'm telling you to keep walking. Remember what they said back at that place . . . about being wanted? What if you're caught and it all turns out to be worse than you think it is.

I'm not gonna get caught.

You don't know that.

Yes I do.

The next thing she knew she was embracing the warmth of a run down, seemed to be abandoned apartment, avoiding to trip over broken furniture as she ventured further into the black. It was brutally silent, yet better than the cold of the outside world, at least here she could think . . . that was until the lights flashed on. It always turned out like how it did; face to face with the barrel of what seemed to be a loaded gun. Then she was eye to eye with a very angry man whose white knuckle grip on the gun didn't intimidate her as much as he think it did. His big, grey caterpillars furrowed together in such fury, she had herself convinced it was lights out any moment now.

"Do you not have your own house you can break into?" He spoke these words as if they were in scripted in the bible, his tone dripping with determination and thunder.

"'Fraid not," she replied casually, eyes reluctantly glued to his, overlooking the fact that the barrel of a loaded rifle was mere inches from her nose. "If I did then we'd still be strangers,"

"Oh and what you don't take me as a stranger?" It was then she heard a twinge of country in his annunciations, suddenly reminding her that scuffling with farmer folk wasn't always a good plan. But what was an old, burgling farmer doing living in the middle of a Queens ghetto?

"No less than the rest of us,"

"You know you seem awfully snappy for a gal in your predicament," He inquired.

"Ain't much of a surprise,"

"How so?"

"You get used to it," He slowly lowered the barrel, eyes plastered on her still, not looking to give in anytime soon, which wasn't something she was planning on. "What's a country man like you livin' in this hell of a place?"

"I could ask the same as you if that accent holds up to be real,"

"Brooklyn doesn't stray too far from Queens. This is my city,"

"Don't believe you," He shook his head slowly.

"I wouldn't either,"

He narrowed his eyes, sliding down into a chair seated at a rusty old lawn table. "Well I ain't doubting you're from Brooklyn, you got the guts for it. So the real question is why the hell, at one in the morning, did you stumble across my window and invite yourself in,"

"Ain't no where else to go," He gestured for her to sit down in the seat parallel to his, setting the gun down at his side, one hand still pressing it between his fingertips.

"Who ya runnin' from?" he nodded.

"Not sure,"

"You a criminal, or something?"

"Or something,"

"What did you do?" She just stared back at him with eyes he swore could stop a bullet in mid air if she needed it, her silence piecing together what he thought would be somewhat of a certain possibility. He was suddenly on his feet, searching his closet slowly before revealing a pair of worn blue jeans underneath a folded, ragged, yellowing flannel. He had piled on some sort of military jacket given the snow, which she felt ill putting on. On the tip top sat a pair of innocent enough, stylish, yet strangely menacing combat boots, seemed to be what she thought was her size. He gestured around the corner where no doubt a bathroom awaited her, but she declined.

“Just turn away,” He was going to resist but she was already taking off the medical gown, not wasting any more time in wrapped in that napkin. "Why the hell would you have these?" She asked after she was fully covered, referring to the obviously feminine apparel. "You enjoy the feel of skin tight denim?"

"There was a daughter. Ain't anymore,"

"Oh," she muttered, obviously taken back, the longing to remove what she said from the open air inching up her throat. He dismissed her arrogance, something she thought he definitely wouldn't think to do, but he surprised her, again.

"So you gonna tell me what you did or do you need a ball gown where those came from?"

"Like hell if I know," He looked at her as the silence consumed them, trying to penetrate the glass barrier she had set over her eyes. "Listen. Unless you're working for them I don't gotta waste anymore of your time. I'll leave if you want me to leave . . . I just didn't like the alley and I saw that your window was cracked and I jumped at the first chance to escape plain sight,"

"You must have did something horrible to convince whoever they are that you're some sort of criminal . . . framed maybe?"

She sighed, sinking back into the plastic, creaky chair. "Now that's the only thing I'm sure isn't true,"

"So how did whatever you got yourself into all start?"

She exhaled deeply, thrown off a tremendous amount by this stranger who seemed to be more interested in who she was rather then shooting her in the forehead. It would certainly have been her first action. "I woke up from a nightmare that was better than what i awoke to find . . . yet it's all the same,"

"Don't try and confuse me,"

"That's an impossible task if you're gonna spend anymore time talking to-"

For all she knew she could have continued talking to this man whose company she was finding herself to enjoy, certainly made her feel better getting at least a few things off of her mind, or at least attempting to. She could have grown to know him as someone she could trust, an allied force and even, though knowing it was a long shot; a friend. He could have helped her figure out a way to get all the stuff out of her head, finally learn more about the strange world she found herself journeying through, until all optimism was blasted clear from the atmosphere.

She sat, watching 6 bullets fly into one side of him and out the other, trampling him to the floor surrounding them both with flying, splintering wood as the incoming bullets refused to subside. She was ensnared to the floor in a cross fire, coming at her from both sides in the apartment which was now a war zone. She was encased in a glass case of thunder and lightning, a dreadful storm which she had no choice but to flee from; out of the window which had brought her into that room of regret mere minutes earlier.  
She sliced through the alleyway, dodging clear from anything she feared before, listening to the stampede of army boots rearing up behind her. She was faster and they undoubtedly expected that, because even as she heard their catching breath thrown into the air behind her, she was as fast as electricity, swooping around the corners until she came upon a hurdle in her path. He wasn't too tall, verifying that she wouldn't have to use too much effort to swing him behind a steam grate she became thankful to have at that place and time.

"SHH!" She urged, her palm silencing his muffled protests beneath her. Her muscles froze, listening as the sound of combat boots impend upon them. The suspense threatened to kill her until the silence had continued too long to bring along anything hiding out in the darkness. More moments passed before Noname released the boy, craning her head out from protection where the running on the drenched pavement had come and passed, too far to hear at that point, even for her.

"What the hell, lady?" She heard from behind her, turning to see him brushing off the broken hip she suspect she had given him, but there was no such injury. He was short for his age, given teenagers looked the same as she remembered them being, with a severely structured jaw and impossibly long eyelashes above his sleepy blue eyes. Even in the restricted moonlight she would make out some of his most delicate features.

"Sorry about that," she muttered. "You saw me. I didn't have time tell you that you didn't see anything,"

"Why were they-" He looked behind his back where the alley met the lonely street, then back at Noname. "Why were they chasing you?"

She tugged on her newly received flannel rolling back her shoulders and ignoring the pain in her neck where she had pressed herself against the metal wall. "Because that's what they do,"

The boy blinked. "I'm lost,"

"Good. That's how i leave you," Noname stepped out into the narrow passage, passing all the streetlamps where the boy could see the raindrops catch onto her eyelashes. She wouldn't stop, not even for the 17th protest to 'wait' she heard rearing up behind her.

"Who are you?" He was now at her side, like a fly buzzing around a tree.

"That's on a need to know basis and frankly, kid, you don't need to know,"  
The sky loomed above queens ready to bore it into the morning time. So far up from them yet looked as though they could run their hands through it like a river suspended just over their faces. It was as if God himself had timed the sunrise just right so she could get a glimpse of it, and find that it soothed her the most out of anything she had looked at since she had first awoken.

The painting was separated into three distinct layers lied on top of the other, like glass panels each with their own distinct emotions. The first, which served as what she saw as the backdrop, was as blue as the sky could hope to be. So warm and inviting to be left as one of the colder colors, the color of ice was not entailed here. A blue which served as a hug, a beautiful canvas that glowed yellow the further it seeped towards the horizon below, away from the city skyline. The second consisted of the most inconsistent of pinking, pigmented orange lines, brushed out like lines of latitude, stretching from one side of the sky to the next, disappearing beyond her watchful gaze. And lastly the third layer, the layer closest to them, was nothing but the grayest of grey painted clouds scattered in no particular not set way, never just the same as any of the rest and yet all perfectly aligned like siblings. Each one complemented the one to which they lay with, but Noname could only seep further into any more analysis thanks to the nat whose chatter she couldn't mean to be rid of just yet.

"C'mon I got a right to know who you are. You almost killed me!"

She stopped suddenly, catching the surprise fearsome spark go off in his twinkle eyes, taking a step back in the motionless alley.

"I almost killed you? Are you fucking kidding me?" She muttered, though she might as well have been screaming, that's what it seemed to look like in the reflection of his eyes. 

"Listen here, kid, I don't know who the hell you think you are or what business you have with me, but I'll tell you something, you don't know a damn thing about me and you   
wouldn't want to." She concluded her statement substituting a bullet for a period, turning away from the little twerp with mild discretion. Even after she had taken more steps to count, clearly not out of range yet, his voice still rang clear to her ears.

"What happened to you?" He yelled, the echo of his words not just bouncing around on the concrete walls surrounding them, but her head trembled with them as well. More steps were taken and the silence only pushed more distance between them. But even when she was sure she was rid of his questioning, footsteps greeted her again. She turned sharply on her heel, looking his dead in the eyes.

"Stop following me," she demanded.

"I have a right to know," he shrugged. Why was this kid not scared of her? Was stupidity contagious in this time?

"No. The only thing you have a right to do is turn around, walk away, and don't look back. Go home, kid. This isn't your fight," Her eyes were like lasers, her finger pointing him away from her, but he refused to even consider the path.

"You're in some serious shit."

She sighed, pressing her eyes into her palms. "You're almost as stubborn as I am," she didn't look up yet, but she could sense the satisfied smirk he wore, watching her exhale   
with discretion.

"Okay," she placed her hands on her hips. "What's your name?"

"Parker . . . Peter Parker,"

"Well, Peter, ever dealt with assassins before?"

"Um . . . no."

"You're a terrible liar,"

"Well if I had said I had experience you wouldn't have believed me," he protested.

"Touché," she bobbed her head in the lighting of the New York morning. "Well if your experience is extensive, you might be useful,"

"Really?!"

"No."

No matter how fast he hoped to run, the distance she had conjured and thrown in between them couldn't match how much he moved his legs. A few torn glances, a couple of street corners and he lost her to the early morning sun.

After the sudden slip out of Peter's life, it didn't take her long at all to uncover what she truly needed. She didn't have the iv tube wrapped around her waist to keep the hospital gown up any longer, nor did her calloused feet brush along the length of the New York pavement. She had clothes, clothes that fit the profile of a person in this new date and age, apparently. The source of the generosity rang through her mind, the last glimpse of his emerald eyes burning hers before they dropped alongside the other, the only difference was one stood up and one didn't. She had seen death but how could it change anything else? It was like the first bite of a good meal when you've been hungry too long, you fade into it after the shock, after the high, after the comfort that is so inexplicably normal you can't bare to think about it for too long . . . you're already into your next mouthful.  
She tried to move the horrible distractions from her head, smiling down at the pick-pocketed wallet Peter had no doubt discovered missing by then. She squeezed the faded leather bound billfold in her palm, her one target becoming more and more obtainable the more green she uncovered.

The fog around her mind cleared, fanning it away with thoughts of the Lamborghini and what else she needed, what she set out to retrieve. She had known the city of New York like that back of her hand at one time, that much she knew, what she didn't know was how to navigate this dumpster heap that bothered to be known by the same name. She haven't been gone long enough for continental drift to make even the slightest of modifications, which meant the ocean was just how she had left them, and therefore so we're the docks, all of them.

This country was the farthest from safety she could be, all the scream of long gone Americans pounding against her eardrum as evidence for why she had to leave as soon as possible. When the realization of the fact that those agents didn't just disappear into thin air hit her, it hit her like a tidal wave. It pushed her backwards into a whirlwind of terror and reality, anxiousness beating her down into a concrete box. She began checking her six more than usual, it being second nature to her at this point, hoping it didn't draw too much attention seeing that the sidewalks and roads were topped out with morning traffic. Every face she passed it seemed as though they got more and more dull, excluding their clothes which were like nothing she had ever seen before. She remembered a time where any woman, no matter the age was caught wearing the outfits that these people were, would get cited, prosecuted even. But that rule obviously didn't apply here, seeing the carelessness they wore when they strode past her. Normal people on the way to their normal jobs living normal lives that surely didn't involve murder, assassination, nothing Noname couldn't stop thinking of. She couldn't let other people's worrisome staring get the best of her, instead, she let a single thought, a goal, radiate throughout her head, spilling out of her lips in determination and harsh whispers. She needed a gun. Those goons wouldn't stay put for one, they were probably already mobile. That Peter kid had no doubt already spilled the beans, sending them straight on her tail.

"What're you in here for pretty lady?" She ignored the repulsive pawn broker looming over the glass counter top and moved straight to the point, slamming the door behind her so hard she nearly knocked the ringer off. "Easy on the bell, there-"

"I need a gun." She slammed the money she had retrieved from a certain back pocket onto the glass, watching the man raise his eyebrows at her forwardness.

"Well the ones you're looking for are illegal in New York sweetheart, unless you wanna pump my sho-" Noname slammed a fist down on the table being careful not to crack the glass case between them.

"Do you intend on making me more of a sinner than I already am? If so I got a scratching fist and a long story that you won't have time to hear."

The man simply laughed in her face, looking down on her like a child. It made her feel weak, like somehow this man didn't know what she was capable of . . . which he didn't. She felt powerless to stop the frustration and embarrassment that stung her tear ducts from the inside. Something about the way his eyes crinkled made her want that gun a whole lot quicker.

"I got dough. You got a shop full o' stuff worth sellin’. You also got one hell of a desperate customer right in front o' ya. I don't give a flying shit about legality. You got a gun or am I wastin’ my time?"

His eyebrow twitched at the word her stubbornness barricaded her from regretting.

"How desperate are ya, little mouse?"

Her teeth gritted beneath themselves, her nostrils flaring like there had been a fire lit between her nasal cavities. She sighed, heavily but silently, flashing a sour smile before leaning over the counter. "I know you're a man and that kinda shit is always unable to leave your upstairs, but I'm here now and the only thing you'll be lucky enough to get is cold heart cash from yours truly and maybe a good shiner if you keep the eyebrow dance up."

"Sweetheart this is my shoppe."

"You want it to stay that way?" She grinned.

His eyebrows furrowed "Pardon?"

"I got friends in low places." She lied, not breaking eye contact. This kinda thing had worked before, faking the sense of company. Just you and me was either never well received or very hard to believe. It was one thing to be intimidating in oneself, but a whole other thing to be in good company, have backup, have a plan B. Whatever she remembered seemed to seal the deal on her behalf because his eyes flashed with a fresh hint of fear. "I'm guessin’ you wanna keep both your legs too, don't ya?"

He exhaled, a sigh of surrender. He had given up and after some troubled peers on his end, looking out the windows before leaving her to visit the darkest back room in the joint, she beheld the matte black frame in her hands. Glock 22 40S&W. She turned it in her hands, inspecting it, until his hush to keep it low, out of view from the barred up windows urged the gun into the back of her waist band, underneath protection of her flannel. He gobbled up the money that lay on the glass soon after in silence, being careful no more customers were approaching the entrance.

"You're a bad gal aren't cha?" He cocked up his eyebrows at her again, watching her roll her eyes away from him, feeling his gaze devour her figure, not caring so much at that point.

"Pleasure doin’ business with ya, jackass," she turned swiftly on her heel, leaving the store without another single word or obscene gesture she was itching to throw his way. Now she was back on the street, walking as inconspicuously as ever, only with a handgun tucked in her belt that probably hadn't been cleaned since 1944, of what a time that must have been if she could ever remember it clearly. The thought of returning to the store and testing the old Luger's accuracy on the asshole was tempting, but she restrained for the time being.

She had managed to stick to a tightly woven snake-like pattern throughout her day in the city, weaving through neighborhoods and ghettos without receiving too many eyes, the skeptical kind of course. The only looks she received were too vulgar for her to retain at first, flashing her eyes right back to them which usually veered them off her scent, if not the gun in her pocket would have seen the light of day in an instant. As much as she hated to admit it, even internally to herself, the sickening feeling that radiated from call-calling, go-lucky men stayed with her longer than she needed it to. It pained her to feel so weak at the full in mercy of these men and their wandering eyes, as if something in her mind had barricaded her from thinking otherwise.

She knew herself to be stronger than most, almost unbeatable yet not invincible. She couldn't bring herself to put herself up on Olympus as a God or even someone worth following. She was a human, one of the most delicate, fragile beings to ever be put on the Earth, preventing her from thinking anything else. She was close but not bulletproof.

"You don't move now, ya hear?"

Noname couldn't help but gag at the scent of his horrid, or lack thereof, deodorant. She was strong, but whoever the bastard was had mass. She tried swinging lose but to no avail, as she was finding herself being dragged deep into the shadows of an alleyway, knowing and complying to all the promising consequences she would face if she screamed. Her hypocritical ways became quite clear when she remembered the illegality carried weapon weighing down her spirit. Stuffed in her waistband, safe from eyes but not safe from questions. Her mouth was quite, rearing the shouts back down her windpipe. If anyone had the stones to lend her a hand to not get beaten, raped or worse, there would be questioning and this city was crawling with New York's finest.

She had been firmly pinned against the back wall, ignoring her urge to resist, simply forming a plan. That bastard would have been surrounded by a puddle of his own blood on the alley floor already if it hadn't been for her current position. The mans wolfish eyes ravished her figure up and down, maybe focusing too much on what was between her shoulders.

"Nice socks."

The burly man let his head fall for just enough time, missing her slip free and draw her newfound friend, the two found themselves at a standpoint. She used her body weight to drive him stumbling back just enough for her to lever the handgun between his eyes. It looked as effortless as it did graceful, almost beautiful. Her body fit together with his like a swiveling puzzle peace in the dark. The silence of her efforts captivated the hypnotizing aspect of her skill, amplifying it until his back hit the drenched pavement. He lay like a deer in headlights at the muzzle, his forehead already shining but his terror was short-lived. Just before her hand was lucky enough to pull down on the trigger, ending this sucker, a shot of web ensnared the barrel, silencing the shot and catching the round in itself. The force knocked the action back violently, sending a casing into her face, stunning her just enough to let the man spend the next few seconds alive.

Noname's gun was compromised and he was up in a second, terrified to say the least. She was too wrapped up with what had just silenced her gun to care about the fact that the man bolted the other way down the alley. She was shaking her gun, fingers sticking to themselves trying to break apart. She was horrifyingly confused, eyes shooting from one building top above her to the next, trying to see who or what needed a beating. The familiar, exasperated grunt came from her left before the man lay unconscious on the pavement, looking more like a beached whale in plaid than a man.

"I got enough topsy-turfy for tonight," she shouted into the slightly illuminated black. "So if you don't mind can we move this confrontation along, please?"

It took a few moments of her glaring up into the night, waiting for the recurring movements to drop someone at her feet, which happened faster than she expected it to. She stood, face to face with either the worst or best excuse for a Halloween costume she had ever seen. Not one inch of the spandex, stretchy fabric was not covered in either blue or red. He was hidden one hundred percent from head to toe, with no identity to share with anyone, not even at close range which is where they definitely were. The eyes (or at least she thought they were supposed to pass for the eyes) were huge and misshapen. Black and white outlining them, she watched as they adjusted as if he narrowed them at the sight of her. Gloves, boots, a poor excuse for a belt it seemed as though this guy had the whole package for looking stupid. Noname couldn't hold back a laugh, seeing the boy standing in front of her obviously thought of himself to be pretty intimidating.

"That is probably the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen." Her arms were crossed, a bitter chuckle dying down in her throat with just enough time for the man to break the silence with an exasperated sigh.


	5. CJ

Queens, New York ; May 14, 2016

"Kid you may wanna work on keeping your secret identity a secret."

The boy in the skintight suit now sighed with a complex mix of annoyance and disappointment, removing his stretchy mask and looking at it under the pale moonlight.

"How'd you know it was me?"

"It's not exactly a challenge, sweetheart." Her heightened sense of smell had picked up on his cologne earlier that day, patching it permanently into her memory, as dry and ghostly as a wasteland as it already was. His body language and mannerisms she was able to catch even in the darkness corners of the street; the way he stood, his close to perfect posture and the way his right foot was always trailing inexplicably behind his left, as if it was indecisive about their equality.

"The real question is are you seriously that bored you wasted your day following a stranger around the city?" His eyes flashed with shock, nervousness crippling them at the realization he wasn't as spy-like as he thought himself to be. "Just a warning; if you pull something like that again that newborn bruise on your cheek is gonna get a baby brother."

She looked human but she sounded like she was from another world. Her humanly appearance had deceived him for the time being, she wasn't at all normal.

"What else do you know?" Peter inquired, squinting his eyes as if he had some leverage on her.

"For starters your clothes are in a bag directly behind that steam grate. Upon sight of your rather lazy earlier outfit it's obvious you dress yourself and that could only mean you either lost your parents or they don't give a rats ass of how you look. But, you got a nice, heavy wallet telling me you either get a hearty allowance or there's no one at home to loan you any extra cash, giving you the options of either working for your own income or nothing extra and you've chosen the first option. So it's either a single mom, grandma or aunt, either divorced or widowed. You don't have any pets but pretty sure you haven't taken a shower for what, like . . . three days?"

Peter felt the need to get a whiff of his underarm and an inquiry at his earlier attire as he listened to the truth pouring out from her lips. She stood nonchalantly, naming off all of these very real situations and even if she had been wrong about them, the amount of confidence she had in her beliefs would have lead Peter along with it. Her sense of smell was obviously heightened as was her hearing and sight, which could only point Peter toward two possible conclusions. Either A, she was some alien that fell out of outer space right into his lap, possessing an infinite number of otherworldly abilities he couldn't hope to count. Or B, she had been genetically modified by anyone able to get a hold of that technology. If she truly wasn't from this world, she would possess some sort of a physical deformity or feature. It didn't have to repulsive, no, it could just as well have been the exact opposite. Her beauty was certainly one of the most striking anyone had ever seen, but appearance alone couldn't and wouldn't count. Strength was obviously above average, the same went for her endurance and build. Her eyes looked as though God had left two deep, black holes where the color would have been, too gaping to reach the bottom.

Peter had zoned out in just enough time for her to reach the slightest lick of boredom, opting to leave the poor boy in his own bewilderment of how much she knew about him. It was the second time in that set of 24 hours his pleading for her to stop had been heard bounding down the alley, only this time she stopped but waited him to catch up to her.

His words caught on his breath. "What can I do to get you to trust me?"

"I don't know. Perform some virtuous task, some act of bravery to woo me over. I don't know, you look like you read."

"I'm open to suggestions."

After a long moment, she spoke just before he was about to openly address the awkward silence. "Why do you wanna help me so bad?"

"I wanna help everyone, it's just my thing. You're in some deep shit and I don't know if I can help you but I might know someone who can."

 

"No fucking way." She muttered, staring wide eyed into the now rolled, tinted window of the Ferrari. Peter had followed her airtight gaze after the sudden halt, who couldn't help   
but be hit with a wave of helpless confusion.

"Peter?" Tony's amazement was more humored than surprised, not exactly shocked at the fact that the two had crossed paths. He was happy, no doubt, that Peter had survived this long with her and even more ecstatic over the fact that she had allowed him to.

"Mr. Stark?" Peter stuttered.

Noname threw her tone over to Peter, more shocked than interested in the fact that he had just addressed Tony like a school teacher. "Mr. Stark?"

"Noname." Tony shook his head.

Peter squinted his eyes at the poor excuse for a name, giggling at the name. "Noname?"

"Peter!" She scolded threw gritted teeth.

"Even if we did need introductions we would have already gotten them out of the way." Tony smirked up at Noname who shared no such amusement, arms crossed on her chest but just as ready to run as she always was.

"How?" She shook her head in disgust, referring to how the hell he was able to find her and in such record time.

"I don't need a tracker to know your location, hun." She rolled her eyes at his confidence, standing like a teenager caught on her way back from a high school party. "And, you,"

Peter snapped to attention, like the little brother who swore he wouldn't tell. Tony sighed, no indication of a smile. "Where does she think you are?" It took Peter a second to develop the realization of who Tony was referring to, mind running back up to his up town apartment. The famous Aunt May.

"I memorized her sleeping schedule . . . like you told me to."

"Good boy. Get in, both of you."

She felt extremely inclined to ask why the hell she should follow his orders, but the more dominate side of her wondered what the hell it would bring about. She was already in hell, a kind she didn't think she would ever live to experience. Nothing she said would change this stubborn assholes mind, and it wouldn't change hers either. Whatever she said wouldn't dare inflict change, not a single hint of reasoning so why try? She entered the car with a relative scowl, not meeting either the boy or his gaze and scrambled to buckle the seat belt before feeling the engine ease on beneath her.

"You are neck deep flowing up shit creek, sweetheart." Tony finally broke the silence after a few minutes.

"Don't you think I already know that?"

"You got SHIELD on your tail thinkin' you're some kind of criminal."

"But I am a-"

"You don't know that, Noname. You don't know that." But she did. She knew more than he thought she did. Remembered. It was more than she needed to know what she was. 

"How much do you remember?"

She had no reply.

"How much, Noname?" More sternly, more feeling behind his words.

"I . . . I don't know."

The car tires screeched to a halt under them, throwing their bodies forward before they had a chance to stop it. Noname heard Peter's rushed breathing in the back, no doubt it had scared him like it had scared her. Tony had pulled over to the side of the road, even though the usual traffic was scarce.

"You don't know?" At this point Tony had almost breached her space bubble, leaning over to her with a terrified fire in his eyes. "That's shit!"

"Why should I tell you?"

"Because I'm the only chance you got. It's either me or prison, maybe even capitol punishment!"

"Why do you care you shouldn't care!"

"Because I'm the one who brought you back from Siberia. I carried you from the valley of death. You owe me."

"I never asked for your help!" She unbuckled herself and began walking furiously down the street, snow building up on the Ferrari she had already put distance between. Behind her, her temporary title was shouted into the air, bouncing off snowflakes and falling back to an echo. She didn't look back.

"You can't do this on your own!" He shouted.

Go to hell. What do you know about what i can or can't do?

"You can't do this, Noname. Don't do it." He wasn't pleading, not one bit. He was warning her.

"Don't you suppose i can take care of myself? Huh?" She shouted, finally turning back to him. "What do you think I've been doing for the last 60 years? Everything that i am-everything that i was is gone. It was stolen, ripped to shreds in front of me and replaced with something else. And that something else has taken more lives and committed more acts of evil than you could ever imagine."

"I understand you've lost things. I've lost things too. I know how loss can turn everything inside out. But you don't know what you're getting yourself into, you don't know-"

"You're wrong. I know what i already got myself into and I probably have a good guess as to how this all will end. I know a lot of things. I know what its like to not know which thoughts bouncing around in your head are memories or some dream. I know what color blood is, especially when its under hard light. I know what sound a penny makes when you drop it in some water. I know what pulling the trigger for the first time feels like and how fast the light will leave someone's eyes. The only thing I can comprehend completely is how the hell I'm so knowledgeable about death . . . and why i can only describe it as a comfort. It's been the only constant in my life for sixty years."

Nothing that she said held a bit of regret or sadness, she said these things furiously. Tony looked as though he had just been shot straight through the chest, his silence was awing.

"You think you know loss? Think again." There could have been tears in her eyes, he couldn't make something like that out from where he was standing. But there could have been. For the first time since she had spoken to him that day when she realized the burden of living was still on her shoulders, he actually seemed to understand. It was as if he dove into the remnants of her remembrance, finally seeing everything they jammed into her head. But whatever he hid underneath his potentially pained face, it wasn't at all correct.

"What did they do to you?" He whispered into the snow.

"Don't you dare act like you don't already know everything."

"All I know is what I've gotten from the people I know who have been through the same crap life as you did."

"You . . . you know people like . . . me?" She couldn't believe him and she didn't bother attempting to. She wore a smile that was too bitter to even think of as sincere. Tony thought she was to burst out with laughter or tears as any given moment, and he had no way to tell. "You're lying!"

"I know you're a bit skeptic and I know that's pretty much the understatement of the year. And I know I may be trying and I'm a difficult, more trouble than I'm worth pain in the ass. Call me what you want but I'm no liar." She appeared less erratic than the moments before. "They are people like you who were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Now I don't know the whole story in your case but I do know that what they put you through is very similar, or in one of their case's, the exact same thing they put him through."

"How many?" Her voice lowered to a mutter, crossing her arms.

"Three. Twins . . . and a soldier."

"Saying that made you apathetic. Ashamed are we?"

"Overly critical are we?" He snapped back.

"Tremendously." She pronounced flatly, switching her weight from one leg to the other. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his pats, suddenly noticing the low temperature and exhaling into the snow.

Realization hit her like a truck. "You failed them . . . didn't you?"

He dropped his head, eyes glued to the soaked pavement.

"I understand,"

"What now?"

"It all makes sense. That's why you've coddled me like a fuckin' new born when I didn't ask or need your help in the first place. I saved your life except I don't remember asking you too! You martyred your way into making me feel like I owe you. You're trying to make up for your dumb ass mistakes with those poor bastards you must have have down."

"You are way in over your head, kid."  
"Don't call someone a kid if they're 60 years older than you, Tony. I'm not an idiot I know how old I am. Don't try and convince me otherwise."

The heat had escalated and so had their voices. "CJ I'm trying to help you!"

"Don't you call me that!" She exploded, closing the distance between them like lightening. They were face to face. "Don't you dare call me that. I don't even know how the hell you know that but don't let it happen again."

"That's your name!"

"That's not my name!" Her Brooklyn accent was out of hiding and booming with a furious thunder. It echoed off the brick buildings but was captivated in the surrounding snow.

"It's the name of the person you were!"

"That person is dead." The adrenaline was pumping through her body, sprouting into her shaking fingers and throbbing head. "She's gone . . . and she's not coming back."

"You're just so wrong." Which silenced her for the first time. Tony had to hide his pride at that.

"You might think she's gone, but you're wrong. It's not that you haven't heard that name since then and it's not the fact that it seems too far away to accept it. You're refusing to accept it because you think you don't deserve it. CJ is the girl who ran around Brooklyn and would sneak out to ride in boy's cars at night. She ate at diners and had a normal life and dreamed to one day make something of herself, and maybe even change the world. You drew a line between this life and that life, between her and the person you are now. You got it all wrong. She's still who you are."

"I didn't change the world," she gulped, stepping away. "I destroyed it."

"Those things you did ....it wasn't you."

"I know," she sealed her eyes shut, shaking a bit, holding back bile. "But I did it. Just like the others didn't mean to do whatever they were made to do. But it still went down."  
Tony had nothing in his head he could manage to put into words, all of it was too much for even a genius like him to make out. So he settled. "It's natural to feel guilt."

"Nothing about this is natural!" There came that bitter sweet, heart-wrenching smile again.

"CJ-"

"Don't."

"No, I won't. I won't stop until you realize how much you deserve and starting with that is you deserve acceptation of your name."

"She's gone." She repeated. Again and again and again and again it played on in her head.

"The only one whose gone is Noname. You're CJ. Accept it or not."

"That's not it."

"Yes it-"

"No ....I mean it's just a nickname ..." Her accent was almost completely gone and anger more often than not came hand and hand, so fury followed it out.

"You-you know your real name?" Dumbfounded as he was, Tony didn't seem exactly surprised.

"Not exactly. I just have a feeling that CJ isn't something a parent would name their child. Am I correct?"  
Tony gulped. "Yes."

"I don't wanna know. I just wanted you to know that I understand that. I'll find out sometime. One step at a time." She nodded her head softly. "One more thing um ...what were their names?"

"The Maximoffs and um ...the soldier's name was Barnes." They stood, separated by a long length of new found understanding hovering between them. The snow was getting thicker now, both in the air and on the road. The street beside them was almost completely deserted, free of distraction and noise. Silence consumed the scene.

Until Peter's small cry came from the vehicle. "Uh, Mr. Stark?"

"Yeah, kid?" Tony called over his shoulder.

"Uh ....is this supposed to be beeping like this?" It turns out it wasn't supposed to be beating like that. It was the radar. Lit up like a Christmas tree.

"Warm bodies. Everywhere." Was that a hint of fear burning Tony's throat? They were all three surrounding the car in a matter of seconds, turned outward trying to spot anything anyone they could. Because they were there all right, making up the perimeter.

"Who are they?" Peter asked.

"Doesn't matter. Peter there's a Glock 19 underneath the passenger. You know what I want you to do. CJ," she did was he half expected her to do, feeling pride well up inside when she responded to her name. He had to hide the smile. "You need to go."

"What? Hell no. I'm not leaving now not with what we just went through!" Her accent rang clear through the street.

"They got eyes on us. Men on every side. Shits gonna go down and you're not gone be here when it does." She couldn't word her frustration. Her parted lips twitched with silent refusals.

"Take Peter. Take the gun and go."

"You must be pretty stupid if you think I'm gonna abandon you."

"It's an order-"

"You're not my dad. You're not my captain. And I'm not leaving without you." She flat out refused, telling Tony there was no way getting around this. He sighed and it lasted longer than it needed to. He yanked up his sleeve, grunted, and pressed the metal band on his wrist. The metal unwrapped itself like a Christmas present.

"What the fuck!" But before she could even get the full phrase out, she was scooped up by a big, strong metal arm. One more stop to yank Peter out of the car by his shirt collar and Tony blasted a huge burnt hole in the snow below, rocketing up into the crisp air with ease.

Peter had been a bit shocked at the sudden turn of transportation but you could say that he was used to it by now, only expressing mild concern for their advancing height. Her on the other hand, was expressing severe concern through the means of panicking, kicking, cussing and finally when no one bothered to show her an explanation, she buried her face into the mechanical chest, screaming softly at sharp turns and ducks. Tony took them miles away, so fast she felt like they were flying at the speed of light and they weren't ever going to be able to slow down. Eventually, as the motion sickness faded away, CJ slowly opened her eyes. Around them, the stars twinkled like distant light bulbs, like white Christmas lights all skewed about the night. The moon was out and it illuminated their faces. Peter looked way too calm being that high about the ground, and Tony, well . . . CJ couldn't exactly see his face even when the lights where his eyes should have been returned her gaze. Tony felt her stiffen but the pressure released when she realized how weak it made her appear.

An hour passed, the sound of harsh wind wiggling in where communication would have been. When Tony finally started their dissent, the sun hadn't even peaked over the horizon, yet. As they began lowering, CJ finally understood where they were. The big ass A on the top of the main compound building gave her a hunch. Tony finally released his grip on her middle, plopping her down on the concrete roof with ease. He had done that before.

"Did you build this?" CJ grasped Tony's mechanical head in her hands, standing on her toes to get a better look. No one could blame her though ...the technology was even new to Tony and he invented the damn thing. Tony yanked away, his exasperated groan sounded static, like a robot.

"I try and I try and I try," his metal helmet collapsed behind his head, a small fragment of what it once was. He ignored CJ's complete astonishment and continued. "And what do I get for that? I had to leave my car and my innocence in New York City to keep you from getting us killed."

"Hey!" CJ intercepted him when he attempted to walk away. Big mistake on his part. Her eyebrows were already furrowed, and she had planted her finger harshly on his chest plate. Tony would from time to time forget how physically capable she was. He didn't even need to go through a physical fight with her to know how much stronger she was than Barnes. Maybe even Rogers. "Don't you even try to pull that shit on me, right now. I'm not gonna get into the whole I never asked for your help thing because it's way too overdone at this point. But it's also true. Now about your innocence. They saw me ...they saw you two with me, so I'm guessing they got a hunch on where we were headed. Don't bother figuring out a place for me because when they come, and they will, I'm turning myself over."

"That's gonna be a hard pass from me."

"That's why i didn't ask you. As long as I'm still on the run, I pose a threat to everyone ....that I'm with," she gulped, that bloody scene only a day earlier spilling into her head. "I'm better facing the hammer than I am out here and I'm sure there's a lot of people down stairs who feel the same way."

"SHIELD will protect you."

"Really? Like you protected Barnes?" She hit for home with that last one, and the shattering deep in his eyes told her it struck true.

So one defeated Fine after the other and Tony agreed. He lead her and Peter into the compound, dodging agents and workers which turned out to be effective. He stuck them in a large, darkened room and turned in all the blinds.

"Woa, woa, woa. Hey what's the plan?" CJ stopped Tony before he shut the door behind him.

"We can't stay here. There's somewhere that's safe with people that can help us and help you, but it ain't close. If I'm not back in ten take these," she caught the keys he tossed her way. "Start the jet on the roof and get yourselves out."

 

She had no intention of doing that.

The room was much colder than it looked, machinery scattered here and there with heavy artillery shoved in the corners and what looked to be cameras hanging the elevated ceilings. 

"Peter," she snapped through a whisper, gabbing her finger discretely up at the lenses. "Anything we can do about that?"

"Shit! Yeah. Hold on," CJ watched in wonder as he literally pounced onto the wall and started scaling the concrete. She felt like she needed to clap or cheer but all she could do is stare. "What?"

"Oh nothing it's just ...I was just flown over New York in the arms of a flying, metal man and you're climbing walls it's just kind of ...I don't know."

"Awesome?" He offered, smirking.

"Yes. It's pretty flipping awesome you got that right." She laughed and leaned against the work table and continued to watch as he disabled every camera one by one in that room by hand.

He hesitated, but he wanted to talk to this chick. "Are you like, alright? That was pretty intense on the street back there."

"I think I've reached a point where I kinda know things aren't gonna really ever be alright for me. I know that sounds kind of worthless coming from someone who has really only been alive for a few days, now."

"Not at all, actually." He shook his head.

"Really though?"

"Yeah. I mean, it doesn't really matter how long we've experienced things. All we have are our experiences. What they are exactly, is meaningless, but their severity is defined by how we act on them to change our future experiences. Make our lives better or worse."

She couldn't hold back the big, bright smile he helped bring to life. "Parker you're one smart kid."

"Eh, I've been told I'm pretty bright for my age." He shrugged like it wasn't big deal that he was basically a genius, and he wore it wonderfully.

 

"Mr. Stark!" The receptionist exclaimed at his sudden appearance in the lobby, jumping from her seat.

"Yeah, yeah. Hi Lucy. Has the CIA shown up yet? FBI? Homeland security?" Around them, the Avengers compound was bustling with an early morning but severely heavy traffic flow through out the entire building. The front lobby was chalked full with businessmen, scientists among other workers all just getting to work.

"Um, n-no. Should we be expecting someone?" The sun was very tempted to spout up into the sky, but it's light had not yet danced upon the treetops. Two floors above Tony's head, CJ jabbed a finger into the blinds resting over the widow overlooking the main parking lot. On the far north side of the base, the main entrance, three monstrous black vehicles plowed through the front gates without consent. One by one they followed the road that eventually lead to the building they were in. She didn't say a thing, but instead continued to tune Peter out as he was much too interested in a machine she had no intention of paying attention to.

"CJ what are you doing?"

"Don't try and make this harder than it has to be, Peter." Peter immediately ran shuffle in between her and the door. "I said I was going to turn myself in and that's what I'm going to do. We're not discussing this again."

"I won't let you." He shook his head vigorously.

"I have above average strength."

"I have above you strength."

That building was about to be the scene of something worse than worse, and Tony knew that too. But that didn't stop him from being a sarcastic little asshole for one second. No sir.

"Hey fellas," he was leaning nonchalantly on the front counter, a stupid smile slapped onto his salt and pepper beard. "Little early for a consultation. Did you schedule an appointment?"

Two men had emerged from the front entrance. Both were covered in black, heavily padded uniforms. Too many weapons too see but the big ass one with the scope the tall one carried in his hand was enough to see this not ending at all well.

"Hey you got a permit for that?"

"Cut the crap," the tall one spat before his eyes thinned. "Where is she?"

Tony shoved his hands in his pockets, and shrugged. "Care to show some identification?"

The man lifted his gun, not even aiming it, and put a bullet into Lucy. Before the thud of her body dropping to the floor and before the slight screams could be heard throughout the lobby, Stark was covered head to toe in the mark 75. Around him, his fellow agents had firearms out in an instant, standing strong and aimed at the men.


End file.
